What a delusion is augury!"
It would seem, from the following story, that an old man's prayers are
sometimes reversed in response, as dreams are said to "go by
contraries": An old Arab left his house one morning, intending to go to
a village at some distance, and coming to the foot of a hill which he
had to cross he exclaimed: "O Allah! send some one to help me over this
hill." Scarcely had he uttered these words when up came a fierce
soldier, leading a mare with a very young colt by her side, who
compelled the old man, with oaths and threats, to carry the colt. As
they trudged along, they met a poor woman with a sick child in her arms.
The old man, as he laboured under the weight of the colt, kept groaning,
"O Allah! O Allah!" and, supposing him to be a dervish, the woman asked
him to pray for the recovery of her child. In compliance, the old man
said: "O Allah! I beseech thee to shorten the days of this poor child."
"Alas!" cried the mother, "why hast thou made such a cruel prayer?"
"Fear nothing," said the old man; "thy child will assuredly enjoy long
life. It is my fate to have the reverse of whatever I pray for. I
implored Allah for assistance to carry me over this hill, and, by way of
help, I suppose, I have had this colt imposed on my shoulders."
* * * * *
Jami tells this humorous story in the Sixth "Garden" of his
_Baharistan_, or Abode of Spring: A man said the prescribed prayers in a
mosque and then began his personal supplications.
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